9.53am: Hello and welcome to our A-levels live blog today, as the clearing process continues for many students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Here are this morning's headlines:

• David Willetts, the universities minister, has said that schools that encourage teenagers to enter a "mishmash" of A-levels subjects that fail to earn them a place at a leading university are playing a "cruel trick", as results showed that private school pupils dominating traditional subjects. Pupils at private schools are also three times more likely to score an A* than their comprehensive-school peers. Willetts said:

We shouldn't pretend that all these different courses all have an equal chance of getting you on to an academic course at a competitive university. It's a cruel trick on a young person to put them through a mishmash of A-levels that might be maximising points in a school league table but isn't maximising their chances of getting on to an academic course at a competitive university.

• The publication of A-level results yesterday marked the start of a scramble by about 282,000 applicants for places for clearing – the system that matches students who did not get the grades they wanted with spare places. With around 47,000 spare places, more than five students are competing for each one, Ucas reckons. Tell us your clearing stories below. How is the Ucas system working today, after the website had to be taken down for long periods yesterday? Have you found the place you wanted? Or did things not go to plan? Add a comment below, email me at paul.owen@guardian.co.uk, or contact me on Twitter @paultowen.

• Ministers are considering sweeping away the system of offers based on predicted grades, moving to a world in which candidates apply for university after their A-levels. This would require changes to the dates of exams, swifter publication of results and/or moving university terms. Yesterday I suggested that students get their results in August, then apply to university, and begin in the January term. On Twitter, Emma (ifoundthewords) responded to this idea by saying:

A post-results application process would surely we then get the unemployment rate rocketing for the mini 'gap year' Aug - Jan?

Let me know what you think.

• A boom in maths and science at A-level is being attributed to the "Brian Cox effect", reports Jeevan Vasagar, who looks at which subjects are popular and which are not this year and whether the TV physicist can take the credit.

• Critical thinking is the subject that has shown the sharpest fall in popularity this year, reports Jessica Shepherd. But what exactly is it?

• This year's results day may not only be a life changing moment for students - it represents the final stage in a revolution started by Margaret Thatcher, the Guardian writes in a leader column.

Let me know your thoughts on any of these issues and your own experience of A-level results day and clearing below, by email or on Twitter.

10.37am: I have just been speaking to Ucas about the clearing process. A spokesman said there were 29,000 courses offering vacancies, but each of those might have multiple places to offer so the number of places will be much higher. He said that they expected around 47,000 people to get places through clearing this year, but there was no way to know, he said, how many had got places so far and how many places were still free. He thought the bulk of the clearing process would take about a week, but there was always a "long tail" and a few places might still be being matched in September or even October.

11.11am: More than 3,600 places have already been taken through clearing, the Press Association is reporting.

Ucas figures show 195,415 students are now eligible for clearing, and 3,692 have already secured a place through the system.

The figure for those finding a place already is down on last year, when around 4,000 youngsters had taken up a clearing place by this point.

In total, 401,000 students have already had their university places confirmed, a rise of 7,500 on 2010, Ucas said. And around 78,000 youngsters are still awaiting a decision from their chosen university.

The head of Ucas, Mary Curnock Cook, said "lessons have been learned" from the failure of the Ucas Track website yesterday. It had to be taken offline for long periods, infuriating students who wanted to see if they had been accepted by their chosen universities or needed to begin the clearing process.

Curnock Cook told BBC News that the spike in visits, up to 644 a second at its peak, was down to users finding out the site had "soft-launched" and alerting their peers through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

"I think our lessons learned from yesterday was that just in the space of 12 months the way that young people communicate with each other using social media has changed out of all proportion," she said.

1.26pm: My colleague Hannah Waldram has been taking a look at the Ucas Facebook page, where users are still complaining about not being logged on to the university systems as "accepted" so they cannot be put in the queue for accommodation.

Rose L asks:

I've managed to secure a place through clearing and given the place over the phone. But I need to start sorting out accommodation and stuff today, they have said yes over the phone can I then go on and assume the UCAS will be told they confirm so I can sort out a place to live?

The wall of the page is littered with questions - MCL writes:

My firm choice have told me I have been unsuccessful, however my insurance place is unconditional. When will this update on track confirming my place at my insurance?

John L writes:

My daughter is on a 'reserve list' for her insurance place (280 offered, 220 gained). Is this normal? It's certainly hugely stressful.

Sakib A writes:

I never got the required grades and did not make it into my firm or insurance choice. Its the 2nd day since results and Ucas Track still hasn't entered me into clearing, isn't it supposed to do it automatically.

I've been teaching undergraduate physics for almost 20 years now and there has been a continual decline both in the amount of factual physics known and the problem-solving skills of incoming undergrads with straight A grades. The pace has accelerated in the past 10 years.

What is so sad is that these students have to work harder than my generation ever did, but they seem not to do anything enjoyable in their high-school studies. It all seems to be jumping though hoops, over-prescriptive syllabuses, knowing the precise buzzword.

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